She moves in mysterious ways, ahhh ah ah.

I've heard of tears in yoga class but had never actually experienced them myself until yesterday.  I'm not sure if it was tears of finally starting to feel my body move in ways I never thought possible or the grace of the strength that I've started to feel overflowing into every aspect of every movement of every day, but I gave in to the sheer bliss that came as little streams ran from the corners of my eyes into my already sweat-drenched hair.

What really clenched the moment, though, was this poem, read softly and quietly as I lay in Savasana, meditating on what I could become, meditating on what I have become over the course of a week, letting the feeling well up in my heart, into my throat and when I could no longer contain it, letting it spill over and out of my body in big beautiful, joyous tears:

"The Thing Is"  Ellen Bass

The thing is...

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.


It's nice to be holding life again.